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A router has nothing to do with providing WiFi. You should have a separate router and WAP. For the router, any fanless mini-PC with two ethernet ports. Run Ope
by fnj 10y ago
A router has nothing to do with providing WiFi. You should have a separate router and WAP.
For the router, any fanless mini-PC with two ethernet ports. Run OpenBSD or pfSense.
- roseltraut 10y agoI wonder, are there simple powerful just AP's comparable to the already mentioned routers? Just with less features...
- Zelmor 10y agoyes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9482696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9482696
- hedora 10y agoI had the Asus AC68U, which was the best rated consumer router on smallnetbuilders, in terms of wifi range and speed. I just replaced it with a Ubiquiti AC-PRO access point which is much cheaper than the Asus. The Ubiquiti is maginally better in my informal testing with the two in the same location. After ceiling-mounting the Ubiquti in a more central location, it blows the asus out of the water. It went from ~100 MBit -> 500+ on the old "dead spot" desktop, the raspberry pi on that desk went from 22MBit to 72MBit. The rest of the house has better coverage than before. For a router, I use openbsd and this guide: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13052673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13052673 The router is an AMD that runs almost any unix, so it is more or less immune to obsolescence due to lack of software updates (Linux and *BSD all have to abandon headless x86-64...) Total cost was ~$300. The router was $200 of that and should last until my home internet connection is ~1GBit (OpenBSD probably can't NAT quite that quickly on that hardware--haven't measured it). [edit: fixed asus model number]
- TheRealDunkirk 10y agoI built a firewall/router out of this board, with Linux and shorewall. It took a trick with the installer to get it to go, but it's run for a couple of years now without hardly a thought. I love it. http://www.pcengines.ch/apu1d4.htm http://www.pcengines.ch/apu1d4.htm I agree with the separation comment, but you can buy a radio for this board, and make it do wifi as well. The case even has pre-cut holes for the antennas. I've thought about doing it just for the fun of it.
- Tharkun 10y agoI love the APU2, but it draws 5 times more power than my TP Link.
- TheRealDunkirk 10y agoAt 11 cents/kWh for electricity, and an average load of 9W, that makes the APUD14 cost a whopping $8.67 per year to run. I'll gladly trade $7 over the course of a whole year in order to have a general-purpose OS on which I can run all sorts of interesting things.
- Tharkun 10y agoPower is three times as expensive over here. It's a very poor trade.